If you are serious about improving search engine rankings, you need to check the keyword density of your web site. In order to do this you must integrate proper keyword phrases within your meta tags and web copy.

What is keyword density?
This is the ratio of a keyword or keyphrase to the total words (depth) on a page. It is one of the most critical aspects of search engine optimization. To improve search engine ranking, your keyword density must not be too high or too low.

Try to aim for a keyword density of 1% to 7%. To achieve 1% you would need to insert your keyword or keyword phrase once for every hundred words. If you only used your keyword once in one thousand words, this would result in diluting your keyword density.

Don't try to stuff all your keywords together, separated by commas. Search engines may see this as spam, penalizing your rankings.

How to improve your search engine ranking

The best way to achieve good rankings, is to research the appropriate keywords or keyword phrases related to your web copy before you even begin building your site.

If your site is already built and it's on the Internet, you may want to consider reviewing the keywords and make the necessary changes to your meta tags and web copy. It makes no sense to have a site that is not targeted to the right audience and expect high search engine rankings.

If your site has a lot of graphics or flash and is short on content, you should consider redesigning it. Search engines love content rich pages, so use images and flash sparingly.

Search engines will spider the heading tags in your web copy first (H1, H2, H3) because these stand out from your main text.

5. Write your web copy so that it not only satisfies the search engines but also is compelling enough for your web site visitors to read (don't make it sound weird to read or obvious you are just writing for the search engines). Repeat your keyword phrase or combinations of them every few sentences.

6. Write at least 250 words (or longer) for each of your web pages. Search engines will spider the text near the top of the page, rather than at the bottom. Therefore include your keywords in the first 250 words on your page.

7. To avoid making your text hard to read, split your paragraphs into 2 or 3 sentences or make use of bullets.

8. Avoid using words that may be popular, but are not related to your site. This will not improve your search engine ranking and will only frustrate your visitors who are searching for relevant content.

9. Keyword density analysis - use a keyword density analyzer to check the keyword density of your web pages. This will tell you if you have used too many or too few words in your web copy.

10. Realize that not all search engines treat keyword density the same. Some will only place significance on keywords in your title, meta tags and web copy. Google (the most important search engine), places the most significance on keywords in your web page text.